Dear girls:

In spite of Helen Hendrix Mohr's praise of my efforts to adapt myself to a mill-town environment, I announce with pleasure my return to civilization having moved four years ago from Louisiana to Memphis, and from there to this progressive little city.

My two years in Memphis can be best described by my pleasure in building a comfortable brick home (and that means a great deal to a person who had spent several years in a lumber town) and by my enjoyment of various departments of Memphis' rather remarkable Nineteenth Century Club, with its membership of two thousand representative women. My sponsors for membership, I will mention incidentally, were a President of the Vassar Alumnae Association, a daughter of President Patton of Princeton, and a daughter of Chancellor Kirkland of Vanderbilt University.

At the Club I had the privilege of hearing lectures as authoritative as if I had been attending courses in a college, some on modern English literature by a learned Jewish Rabbi, some in political economy by a local professor, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and, most enjoyable of all, lectures in French, one being by a representative of the University of Paris.

When my husband's head-quarters were moved here, I was loath to leave it all, not knowing what greater pleasures awaited me here, which are a roomy bungalow ready built but attractive, and with pine trees to the side and a mulberry grove (wouldn't Rosalie have thrilled over it?) to the rear belonging to me, a well organized branch of the A.A.U.W. and last, but decidedly not least, an A.I. college just three blocks from me where I have the honor of being Head of the Modern Language Department. The president of the college paid me the compliment of 'applying to me' for the position shortly after I had moved here, and I began my 'career' ( I will not spell it with a capital yet) about a year and a half ago as Associate Professor with nine hours of college work in Italian and French.

Last year the former head of the department, an extremely bright but very old lady, gave up teaching, and I was paid the honor of being given the Chair of Modern Languages. I have four very interesting classes, one in Italian and three in French. I have an Associate who gives Spanish work, as I naturally objected to offering more than two languages. Soon I will begin to spend part of my summer at different Universities, to make a thorough review of my work, and later I plan to take a modest A.W. *** it may seem most advisable. I will hope to get some credit for the two and a half years of University work that I did twenty years ago.

Thyra's work naturally interests me a great deal. I know that she was just as proud of her first year Latin poem as I was of a whole page of correct and original French that one of my pupils handed in to me last year after two months of study. My greatest pleasure was in seeing verified the theory as well as practice which I had studied very earnestly a great many years ago under the remarkable Professor *** of the University of Geneva. He gave all foreign students interested a comprehensive course in modern methods of modern language work, and we were required to exemplify his theories before a class of German children who could not speak French (the class included a young American girl also). Also I am delighted at the phonetical system of teaching pronunciation being adopted in practically every institution in the country, our small Belhaven College being naturally included in that number, for I was fortunate in having almost a year's work in that rather intricate work at Geneva and the astonishing experience of a post-graduate course at Paris under the famed originator of the science of phonetics, the remarkable Abbe ***.

Please do not think that I neglect my Home. Home and Husband (please notice capitals) come first and then College. And I do not have a maid, but I do have six o' clock dinner, which gives me the greater part of the day to myself.

Yes, I have learned to type so I will hope for your sakes, to have a machine in my home to use when Robin comes again. Till then I am yours in 1903, Nancy Catching Shields

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